


Another Me

by lonerwind



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternative Loki, Angst, Angst and Humor, Broken Bones, Character Development, Families of Choice, Good Loki, Injured!Loki, Light Angst, Loki (Marvel) - Freeform, Loki Angst, Loki is in a wheelchair, Loki!2012, Loki!Alt, Loki's Children - Freeform, Loki's not good but he's working on it, Major Character Injury, Marvel - Freeform, OOC, Other, Out of Character, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Quadriplegic!Loki, Some Humor, Thor - Freeform, disabled, paralytic Loki, paralyzed Loki, spinal cord injury, wheelchair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:06:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25607830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonerwind/pseuds/lonerwind
Summary: After escaping with the Tesseract, Loki travels through alternate universes. In one of them, he sees himself in a wheelchair.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	1. ?

**Author's Note:**

> I understand that in realities MCU would have found a way to help Loki walk again, but I wanted to make the situation hopeless.

Loki was thrown from one universe to another. Making jump after jump, he did not think at all about the possible consequences of the rupture of space.  
This time, the wormhole threw him out in the garden. He had already been to a similar reality. This is his home in New Asgard. Everything is the same as the previous times, except for one thing. In addi-tion to the steps, a ramp led to the veranda. There was no one around, children's voices could be heard in the distance. A couple of moments later, from somewhere from the depths of an overgrown garden, three boys, about five years old, ran out. One, fair-haired, bellowing, with a bruised forehead. The other two, apparently twins, the noisier one, ran into the house, leaving the others behind. Inter-estingly, all three children of his here? He had not yet met the version with children, he had seen a married man, he saw himself, almost an outcast of society, he ended up where he was completely dead, but he never had children.  
His own harsh voice came from the house. Loki, watching everything from the dense foliage of the hedge, was shocked . A man in a wheelchair appeared on the veranda. Somewhere inside, everything contracted, and he have lump his throat. Now it's clear who needs a ramp here. He expected to see anything but this. There are countless universes, but what if he himself, one of those versions of him-self, who is destined for a similar fate? Better to die than to live forever chained to a wheelchair. Usu-ally, such things are seen in dreams and called nightmares, and here he is, quite tangible.  
By the way, the local Loki quite coped with his position, considering that he instantly found himself on the veranda with a bottle of "Hydrogen Peroxide." Pouring antiseptic on the boy's wound, he scolded the children for running to the cliff again.

«Narvi, get the needle and thread!»

He commanded, deliberately sternly. One of the twins looked at his father perplexedly. 

«Come on, I need to sew it up, »- he continued in the same pretense.  
«Uncle, don’t! » 

The blond boy staggered back from the man in the chair.

«No, well, this is a serious matter. Come quickly, » - Odinson dispersed. 

But seeing the frightened nephew, now ready to burst into tears, he laughed and ruffled the child's wheat hair.

«Come on, I'm just kidding. It'only a scratch.»

The observer's lips were twisted in a crooked grin. He still remained a lover of cruel jokes. Even with his children. Although, what did the boy call him "uncle"? So this one is not his, is it Thor's kid?  
The children began to beg the man to go somewhere with them, but he did not agree.

\- Dad, we can't do it alone, so take usf!

The boy hungs on the armrest of his father's wheelchair. Loki just shook his head and glanced towards the hedge.

\- Well dad!

\- I said "No". I have a lot of work to do. Magni, mother at home?

The blond boy nodded.

\- That's nice, go get Aunt Sif. 

With some irritation, he waved in the direction of the gate. It was evident that he really wanted to quickly get rid of the children from the yard.

One of the twins frowned: 

"You are always like this."

Loki raised his eyebrows theatrically in anticipation of the continuation. The boy frowned. Loki touched son's chin, forcing him to look at himself.

“I really have important things to do today. Maybe tomorrow?" 

Narvi said nothing, going down the porch, followed by the others. Vali looked back at his seated fa-ther. 

“You won't go tomorrow, you deceiver,” he whispered softly. 

The man pretended not to hear, nervously adjusting the collar of his unbuttoned shirt. After all, the child is right, he will refuse the boys again tomorrow, as well as after tomorrow. He cannot purely physically. Yes, crutches are always at his disposal, but this was on the exceptional occasion. The magi-cian preferred hands free then instead ridiculous parody of walking. On crutches, he felt completely helpless, so he rarely used them now. He long ago realized that it was useless,иге a few years agohe laughed and said, Sigyn, that he would marry as soon as he got used to the cane. It didn't work out, it never came to her. He did not feel his legs below the knees, it is impossible to get used to this, only to accept. Accept that he has to spend millennia in that damn chair. Stark suggested Leg Braces like Rhodey. He could not. For some reason, the forced flexion of the paralyzed limbs began to cause hell-ish convulsions.

When the children disappeared from the yard, the magician himself came down from the veranda.

\- Hey, in the bushes!

Loki, hiding in the foliage, froze. This development of events never entered his plans. To show himself here, like all the previous times, he was not going to. 

«I can feel you, don’t pretend you don’t hear»

Нe chuckled as he drove closer to the fence.  
There was nothing to do. No, one could have disappeared at that very second, but curiosity about this universe took over. The local Loki, impatiently drummed on the armrest, waiting for the intruder to show himself. Foliage rustled and one of the twins appeared. 

«You are not Narvi,»

He shook his head. Green sparks flashed and Loki was presented with his own copy, only from 2012. 

« Wow. Life battered you, »  
He whistled. Grief-usurper awkwardly touched the abrasion on his forehead - he himself knew that his vidocq was pretty shabby. Odinson rolled back a little, wondering where this miracle came from. The answer was rather scanty for details.

« Other universes, you say," he chuckled. "And how is it?» 

The traveler was taken aback. It turns out that this one was not interested in the stone, but only in what he saw? This Loki is weird. Sits and looks at him with a certain mockery. 

« How dare he is in this position ?!» 

The black color of the shirt, along with the resinous curls, emphasized the seemingly long-standing bruises under the eyes, making a very self-confident look somewhat painful. I wonder if he sleeps at all? The trickster leaned forward slightly, propping your cheek on the palm of your hand. The man did not leave the desire to fetch the phone out of his jeans pocket and capture the guest in the photo, because if you tell someone this, inadvertently they will think that they have completely said goodbye to reason. Previously, he assumed that such things could be done with a stone of space, but he did not think that this would be really possible. Or maybe it is not available to everyone. Still, there are many moves between worlds, what is the probability that the same is possible with universes?

\- If I were you, I would not play with this thing, the wheelchair user grinned.

\- And you are not in my place! - he snapped. 

Another Loki laughed and said he knew his place. But he can change with pleasure. The magician did not appreciate the joke. And what if this is the future in his universe and is now literally talking to itself.  
The man in the wheelchair saw through the interlocutor. The whole spectrum of Another Loki's emo-tions was read to him like an open book. Stakh and misunderstanding and a note of contempt. Won-derful. 

"You can gaze at me as much as you like," he said sweetly, -Are you afraid this is your future?"

Loki hit the mark and knew it. The disgraced-prince was embarrassed. How self-confident he is, too annoying, he thought. Gaze caught on his polished shoes. Most likely they have never been particular-ly dirty.

\- It won't make you happy. - the local shook his head - I know.

He grinned bitterly and noticing where the interlocutor's gaze was directed, not deftly, helping yourself with his hand, crossed his legs.  
If only Loki had been operated on a little earlier, he could walk and even run. The titan simply crum-bled the vertebrae, so it is not known what would have happened if he were an ordinary person. Shuri did everything she could, but time was lost. The girl was afraid that the Asgardian would be completely paralyzed. At first there was despair. Sincere misunderstanding why he did not die. What's the use of it? It turned out to be unbearable to sit at the window in the van, chained in a metal corset from neck to sacrum and watch New Asgard being built without being able to help. Of course, he did not suffer at all for a long time with a metal structure, but he was left with meaningless time. Depressed, he want-ed to commit suicide. He couldn't do that to Thor. After all, Loki is all that has become of his family.  
***  
\- Thor was ready to carry me in his arms and I ...

\- I decided to take this opportunity?

Another interrupted him sarcastically. The wheelchair user smiled sadly. No, he just decided that he would live, if not for himself, then for the sake of Thor. Often thinking about the past, the magician has become a kind of lover of self-flagellation. You cannot change the past, but somehow you have to live on. He loved to harass himself, sometimes he annoyed his brother. They lived in the same house for a while and it turned out to be terrible. Loki became like a crystal vase for him, and Odinson did not at all understand why his brother was so furious when he tried to help him off the ramp or undertook to lead him down the street. Why, he was so annoyed when Thor began to support him, when he tried to move out of bed into the his unfortunate chair. And once he brought breakfast to bed. This turned out to be the last straw. The whole neighborhood heard the screams of the crippled magician. The Thunderer could not even imagine that he would ever hear such speech turns from his brother. The attention Thor so craved for the trickster was slowly deprived all personal boundaries, as if Thor had a concept of personal space at all. Still, I wanted to preserve my dignity and independence.  
***  
\- And I still would like Thor to be a personal servant, he grinned. Loki only sighed. 

Well, what will he do with him? And reading morality to yourself is somehow stupid. He will figure it out himself later.

\- Are you saying that you are happy to live like this? - He said haughtily, 

\- I will never believe.

\- There is no eternal happiness. But there are moments for the sake of which I am ready to come to terms with my position.

Each action carries with it a number of consequences, good or bad, so how lucky. Loki did not want to lose something. So, even if he was offered to change the past, he would leave it as it is. After all, there will not be a completely ideal outcome, whatever one may say. The world is beautiful in its imperfec-tion.  
For a failed conqueror, this sounded crazy. Live a cripple somewhere in Midgard? Some kind of absurd-ity. What such an existence can bring.

“And what do you want? - I heard my own voice - Great conquests or ...? " The fugitive from 2012 wanted to sneer, but something stopped him.

“Acceptance? Find your place? This one has found, - his, he thought mockingly, - Maybe, people who will need him, no matter what? "

\- Ironically, but I have not stopped envying Torah, - a sad smile played on the face of the local, - Only the reasons have changed.

\- What? - distracted from his own thoughts, he asked.

\- Well, he, for example, can walk, - Loki threw up his hands, -I'd love to play ball with the children. And also, I never gave Sigyn a wedding dance, although I promised ...

\- God of deception! .. - he spattered.

The wheelchair user didn’t reply to the mockery.  
Loki materialized a cube in his hand. Not to say that this one was some kind of special version of him-self, but nevertheless, a very tempting offer came from the magician: to return to his past and change something. But “Another He” didn’t agree.

\- Come back to home, you fool. Such actions will not do without consequences, I do not want to lose what I have.

The refusal, of course, was unexpected, but he was not going to insist. Glancing at the Tesseract, the magician turned his gaze to the seated one.  
Glancing at the Tesseract, the magician turned his gaze to the seated one. The man waved his hand, give realized that it was time for the "guest".  
The trickster closed his eyes, preparing for another ride.  
\- What do you have?  
Disappearing in the portal, the last one heard was a quiet "А family"

«Is it really that simple?...»


	2. 1.

Loki was in shock.  
He won't get back on his feet. When he woke up in Wakanda, he didn't know what had happened to him. And when Shuri told him about the injured spine, he realized with horror that he's couldn't feel he legs.  
"Loss of sensation below the knee joint," the girl concluded after the examination. She was still explaining something to him and Thor for quite a long time, but these words passed the man by. He heard the verdict.

The world collapsed for him. And how else, when you find out that you are doomed to sit in a wheelchair for thousands of years. The very thought of it made a sicked. Why is all this necessary? Be a burden to Thor? He's got enough problems right now without his crippled brother.  
He lay there, bound by an brace that held the operated spine firmly in place, his view completely blank. He didn't want anything at all. He wanted to die.

The only thing that could somehow cheer up- the lack of strict bed rest. They put him in the chair just a couple of hours later. Nor did they delay the departure of the Odinsons to Norway, where the asgardians had recently arrived.

***

Thor was extremely grateful to stark. Thanks to his relations was able to resolve the many problems associated with alien refugees. Permission for settlement development, residence permit, and much more.

One of the problems was Loki himself, or rather, the attack on new York. The SHIELD wanted to take him under arrest, but to trickster's great surprise, stark and everyone who was in Wakanda with him. Trickster was tested on a lie detector. Fury was already preparing the camera, what was his disappointment when the arrest was lifted.

This all happened within a week of their stay in Midgard. He remembered her vaguely. Apathy absolutely to everything that is happening: where they are taking him, what they will do, and even if they kill him, it doesn't matter.

***

Right now, Loki was just lying in his and Thor's trailer . The man kept tossing and turning on the hard bed to find some sort of comfortable position. Only the construction supporting the trickster's body did not allow this to be done. Today was disgusting weather. It had been raining steadily since morning, so the wizard was forced to lie in bed all day. Not that he had a busy life now, but when the weather was nice, he usually sat outside, which is much better. When Loki had to spend the whole day lying down, he became quite despondent. The feeling of his own insignificance devoured from the inside. Everyone is busy with something and only he looked at everything from the side.

He was distracted from his self-torture when Thor bursting in. All wet, with a box in his hands. Loki glanced at his brother. He did buy them his teapot, just as the mage had asked.

"The thunder God can't protect himself from the rain anymore?" he chuckled as the drops dripped from his brother's wet clothes.

Thor was really busy solving various external problems of the settlement, so he only appeared here at night, and sometimes in the morning. He didn't have enough time for Loki physically. Several times there were attempts to take my brother with me, but he refused. Thor understood why, but he didn't want to admit it, pretending that everything was normal between them.

The younger Odinson didn't want to get out of New Asgard. He decided to lock himself up in a van, and then, if all went well, in a house somewhere on the outskirts of town, unless something else happened to him.

To some extent, the mage felt that he deserved this fate.

–The weather is great, do you want to go for a walk?– winked at Thor.

– Are you Kidding me?

–I like the rain. I won't let you get wet.

Loki let out an exasperated sigh, closing his eyes.

–Leave Me Alone, Thor...

he was looking through Thor. The thunder God took off his wet jacket and sat down on the edge of the mage's bed.

– How's your back, brother?

Loki looked somewhere through the Thor. His viewwere so blank after what had happened. There is no longer that light.

"Is that what you want to hear?

" Thor shook his head.

"I want to hear the truth, Loki," he said, patting his brother's knee, which made him flinch, not expecting to be touched.  
The sensitivity, even if very weak, still remained.

– No. I really don't have any pain. Just nothing.

He wasn't really bothered by the pain, at least not physically, but his own futility burned through him.

***

Thor didn't answer. It was stupid to annoy his brother with empty encouragement, so mocha got up and decided to make tea.  
Loki is still staring at the ceiling, or rather at the second tier of the bed, until the Thunderer brings him a Cup of hot drink. Trickster tried to sit up on his own, but the corset wouldn't let him, making him feel like a turtle turned over on its back.  
Seeing this, Thor held out a hand to help him up.  
The man sat up and somewhat reluctantly took the mug from his brother's hands.  
He wanted to howl from my own helplessness. He simply cannot get out of bed on his own.  
Thor sat down next to him.  
Usually he always told everyone that everything would be fine. Unbreakable optimism. But in the case of Loki, this was not appropriate. Odinson realized this, though not immediately. he couldn't accept that his brother cannot walk and the chances of putting him on his feet are negligible. Everything seemed so unreal and not serious. As if all this was some kind of stupid joke, in the spirit of his brother, and one fine day, Loki will simply be forgotten and get up from the wheelchair as if nothing had happened. Only the state of the trickster suggested otherwise. The man was morally broken and no one could help him. Absolute indifference to everything that happens.

***

-Stark said he would try to put you on your feet.  
Thor sipped his tea loudly. Loki froze.

-Will rewind time back, or what? This is kind of the part of the Warlock. Or am I not aware of something?  
“Don't start, please,” Thor sighed. The magician wanted to turn away, but the corset did not allow his neck to move, after which he simply closed his eyes.

\- Do you remember Rhodey? He, too ... - the Thunderer stopped short.

"He too" what? Both did not want to admit the fact of injury.  
There was a silence. Rain drummed on the roof, and a light bulb flickered every now and then. There was the soft puff of a trickster and the rhythmic tapping of neatly clipped nails on the cup.

\- He can make a device so that you ... you can walk again.

The last word he uttered was barely audible. Loki chuckled. How strange to hear that. Stark offers him help, why would he? Although, this is more likely to help Thor, who cares about the magician, which caused so many problems several years ago.

\- Why would he that?

\- I don’t know, he wants to help, and what?

\- Well, yes, in gratitude, for “all good things”,he grinned wistfully.

\- Eh, Loki ...- the god of thunder stretched out torturedly, “we must start living in the present. What's wrong with an outstretched helping hand?

Loki said nothing. Accept Iron Man's help? In any other situation, he would consider it humiliating, but now, this is perhaps his only chance to feel full again. Loki agreed.

***

“Well, Loks, if you ever want to walk for us,” Tony held out his hand, helping the man to get out of the wheelchair. Loki, ignoring this gesture, grabbed one of the bars, jerking up from the gurney.  
A moment, and behold, he stands. Worth again. Almost himself.  
Thor stood behind and rolled the Loki's chair slightly away from his brother.

\- Come on,Bambi, a couple of steps. 

Loki gripped the handrails in a death grip. The legs were like strangers and he could not bring himself to move. Fear. The legs did not obey, the trickster was simply afraid to collapse before their eyes. It's humiliating. An unpleasant, previously unfamiliar burning sensation was felt in the calves.

\- Well, I insure.

Stark, standing in front of him, spread his arms wide, as if preparing to catch.  
Swallowing, the trickster, overpowering himself, tried to put his right leg forward. The brace firmly held the paralyzed limbs. Of course he was shaking and the other leg was moved with great difficulty. The first steps. He, until his whitened knuckles, grabbed the bars.

-Well, brother,

\- I can't take it anymore! ... - screamed the trickster, at the moment when the spine pierced with acute pain. Losing his balance, he dropped to his knees.

***

In the end, it turned out that Loki had the wildest spasticity. Yes, he will not have muscle atrophy, but the ability to walk again is no available.

There was also an attempt to resort to magic. Alas, just as unsuccessful. Two different streams of magic refused to sync in the trickster.

“Unfortunately, you have to get used to the wheelchair.” - Strange concluded.

***

And so, he was again sitting next to the van.


End file.
